Here is how I decried the practice of exploiting gullible fans by releasing songs recorded and shelved long ago as newly discovered masterpieces:
When producers raised the curtain on Michael Jackson’s much-hyped performance, in hologram form, at last month’s Billboard Music Awards, far from being thrilled, I was just creeped out.
But it occurred to me that, if they could make it appear like Michael had risen from the dead to perform live on stage, they could probably make it sound like he had risen from the dead to record new songs in studio too. This would surely put a new spin on the dubious practice of selling ‘previously recorded but unreleased songs’ after a singer’s death. After all, the reason most songs remain unreleased is that the singer thinks they suck.
Now, though, not only can technology make Michael’s voice sound better than it ever did, but the executors of his estate can hire writers to pen songs that do that digitally enhanced voice justice.
(“More Proof Michael Was Not “Gone Too Soon,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 20, 2014)
The above explains why, far from cheering, I jeered earlier this year when Harper Lee’s publisher announced plans to publish a newly discovered prequel/sequel to her, To Kill a Mockingbird.
I could not help thinking this publication would be far more about easy money (for publisher and agent) than literary acclaim (for Lee). Hence my commentary, “Harper Lee: To Milk a Mockingbird,” February 5, 2015, which includes the following excerpt.
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Having read about the dubious provenance of this sequel, I just feel like jeering.
To begin with, Go Set a Watchman is reportedly based on a completed manuscript Lee’s editor persuaded her to put aside in order to publish To Kill a Mockingbird. This alone raises far too many obvious, but now unanswerable, questions. Most notably: Why was Go Set a Watchman deemed unworthy of publication back then? And what has changed to make it worthy today … 55 years later?..,
But it requires a willing suspension of disbelief to buy her story about suddenly finding what neither Lee nor Alice could for 55 years. And Lee’s publisher is probably banking on such willing suspension of disbelief among fans of To Kill a Mockingbird to peddle other ‘long-lost manuscripts’ — as the New York Times hails this one so disingenuously…
I think the greatest literary fraud in the history of publishing is afoot, constituting a brazen betrayal and exploitation of one of America’s most beloved literary figures.
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Sure enough, now comes this all too predictable announcement:
Go Set a Watchman, the long-lost follow-up to Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird, doesn’t come out until tomorrow but the news is already a flurry of headlines about yet another possible Lee novel out there, in the same mysterious safe-deposit box in Alabama where Watchman’s pages were found — although the details of the discovery are still unclear….
(“To Overkill a Mockingbird,” Vanity Fair, July 13, 2015)
No sh*t!
Naturally, not wanting to miss this gravy train, the estate of Theodor “Ted” Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) soon announced plans to publish long-lost manuscripts, which were reportedly discovered under equally dubious circumstances:
Dr. Seuss long ago passed from the scene but old manuscripts by the beloved children’s author keep turning up.
Random House Children’s Books said Wednesday it will publish a recently discovered manuscript with Dr. Seuss sketches, called What Pet Should I Get?, on July 28.
The publisher plans at least two more books based on materials found in 2013 by his widow, Audrey Geisel, and his secretary in the author’s home in the ritzy seaside neighborhood of La Jolla in San Diego.
(USA Today, February 18, 2015)
Given this trend, it can only be a matter of time before the estate of Truman Capote announces plans to publish a long-lost sequel to his bestseller, In Cold Blood – complete with a cockamamie story about how it was newly discovered.
Not to mention the crying shame of J.K. Rowling doing the same. After all, with the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, her seventh in the series of Potter books, she gave fans a Shermanesque pledge that Potter would be nevermore.
In an interview to promote the launch of the latest Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, [Potter star Daniel Radcliffe] told MTV news that he’d received a text from Rowling promising him that she would write no more Potter stories, after he expressed dismay at the idea of yet more Potter films in an earlier interview.
(The Guardian, November 17, 2010)
Yet, no sooner had she milked this publication, by magically transforming it into two blockbuster movies, than she announced plans for the brazenly craven Pottermore. With this “exciting new website with Sony” and her Harry Potter Shop, Rowling began prostituting what little literary merit her Potter books have; so much so that the peddling of Potter-related merchandise is now such that would make Disney green with envy.
Oh, did I mention she’s coming out with Harry Potter and The Cursed Child next year? No doubt she was quick to assure Radcliffe that she’s not betraying her personal promise to him because this is just a play. Like I said, shameless….
Frankly, this milking phenomenon has become so mercenary that, as fanciful as it might seem, I would not be the least bit surprise if Rowling actually announces plans to publish 50 Shades of Potter – “aimed at the series’ maturing audience….”
Alas, the Barnumesque maxim, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” has never been truer than it is today. Indeed, only this explains why a clown like Donald Trump is dominating the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination by doing nothing more than peddling unrefined, self-aggrandizing bombast as refreshing, self-fulfilling leadership.
Related commentaries:
Michael Jackson…
Harper Lee…